Some Delhi Sites: Red Fort, Qutub Minar, Lotus Temple

This weekend I decided to stay in Delhi for once and take up a few of the surrounding sights. I first went to the Red Fort which is very nearby. 

Outside the Red Fort. Those are sitar cases, not sure if they had sitars in them though. It is common in India to see merchandise being pulled around in odd ways such as this. 

Entry gate and probably the biggest part of the fort in terms of height. The walkway through this door leads you to a bunch of bazaars, of which you can see one if you look closely. I found a pretty nice chess set for myself here and I have been playing chess with my roommates and making bets. 10 Rs a game:) 

If you have seen my blog before you would hopefully recognize this type of structure from the Agra Fort. These pillars are a common architecture style of the Mughal period in India. 

from the outside.

from the inside.... pretty

under construction...

patrolman 

the white wall... once again i am the target of Indian photographers :)

That was all of Saturday. Now its Sunday Morning and I headed towards South Delhi on the Metro, and went to Qutub Minar! At this location there is a giant pillar that streches to the sky to a height of 74 meters which is about 243 feet. It was absolutely amazing and incredible. This is also the area were India's first Mosque was constructed. 

This was my first glimpse of the pillar. I am walking to the site through the Archeological park.

some workers i encountered along the way... i got their photo and they got mine. 

 I can let the next few pictures speak for themselves:

ok, so these kids were awesome. I first met them outside the entryway. I was just walking by this little park and one kid ran up to me asking for just !one! photograph, so i did. and then two more kids came running. then 5, 6, 7... 20.. 40 kids all around me in a matter of minutes asking for photographs. then they wanted autographs and to shake my hand. this went on for about 20 minutes i think. i wish instead of my autograph that i wrote down my blog address on one of those papers so they could see of the photos i took of them. Anyway they saw me again inside and i wanted to take a photo with them. I asked a local to take the photo. I had it setup so that the whole pillar would be in the background, but somehow he zoomed in and tilted the camera a bit.. but i like it anyway! here is some of those photos below:

cool huh?

 trying to do some self portraits. these next few shots are around the pilar complex.

awesome artwork

so this is an 98% pure iron pillar, rust free from the 4th century!!!! it has been studied and talked about for a long time. its origins are unware and its purity is a mystery as this type of purity was not yet achieved again until the 19th century! there is also 1% phosphorus i believe which creates a protective layer from it rusting. that is gnarly. 

inscription on the pillar... sorry i cant read it. 

After the Pillar, i headed to the Lotus Temple. I argued with a rickshaw driver when he wanted 200RS to get there! I thought it was very close and argued for 30-50 Rs, a fair price right? anyway i agreed on 100Rs sure enough, it took about a half an hour... haha. The Lotus Temple is just a place of quite peace and worship to God. It is from the Bahai Faith. The weather was not the best for photos. I was hopping for more blue skies like it was earlier in the day, but it wasn't so the temple kinda blended into the background :) 

There are 9 pools surrounding the temple. Sorry but I was not allowed a camera inside... its just a giant open room.

Next week I will be heading to Udaipur in Rajasthan... stay tuned. 

Trip to Hardwar and Rishikesh

Day1

We traveled to Hardwar by overnight train. I was finally able to sleep as I have been getting used to the train rides now. We took a rick over to the Ganges river where we watched the sunrise and had some chay. We also made some friends down by the river who helped us “Om to Shiva”.

It was too early and cold in the morning to get out my camera until after we had some breakfast. After watching many Hindus taking a holy dip into the river I decided that I should partake in the cultural tradition, being that Hardwar means pathway to God, referring to where the Ganges River makes its final rapids from the Himalyas and into the plains area. The water was not that cold, and I insprired others in the group to also take a dip. As soon as we got out many people came to us to give us offerings and sacrifices to the river.

We then made it over to the absurdly large statue of Shiva which looms as a shadow over everything in the town.  We took some pics and played some hacky sack to relax. We rumuged through other parts of town and finally caught a 4 rupee train ride to Rishikesh. We followed the Lonely Planet suggestion of heading towards the Bombay guest house which was cheap and not to far away.  

Rishikesh

Day 2

This turned out to be a wonderful idea as the stay was cheap (150 RS per room per night, two people per room) and next to the most fascinating bakery I have been to in months: Deruvaj Coffee house and German Bread Bakery. They actually had filtered drip coffee, freshly baked pies, breads and pastries (CINAMON ROLLS!!!). The café sat up on a cliff overlooking the bridge and the river below it. There were lots of foreigners at the café and lots of monkeys by the bridge.

We mostly walked around the different bazaars that first day and decided to try and find the Beatles Ashram, which was supposedly nearby. We walked up into these hills and after a few kilometers of walking we realized we had passed it, but not need to fear for this young and 3able group of people. We started making our own trail through the forested parts off the road. After a while, me and some others decided to head back and not worry about finding the Ashram while the rest pushed on into the trees. I made it back to the main road and found some good food to eat. I came across an evening celebration by the river and I went to check it out. There was a small music ensemble playing some traditional Indian songs on Tablas, Harmonium and voice and a ton of people sitting around some fires doing what seemed like an old ritual that was being shown to some foreigners.

Afterwards, we meet back up with the others who were successufel in finding the Beatles Ashram (at least that’s what they think they found, and I am pretty certain it was…) 

Day 3

The next day we rented some motorbikes! We didn’t ride on any busy or main roads, except when we had to ride across the bridge and into town to get gas because they rented us bikes with no gas… but afterwords we headed back up into this mountain road and had a very, very pleasant ride heading up river. We were riding to the Jumping Hieghts Bunjee jump plateform, where Colin had signed up to jump. He has jumped many times before and we were all very excited to come out and watch… it was my first time actually watching someone jump and it looked sooo scary and exciting. I really wanted to give it a try actually… Anyway, Colin successfully jumped - twice! We then hightailed back into town and returned the bikes and grabbed some more coffee and sweets and the bakery. It was kind of sad that we ate 90% of our meals there, but hey it was awesome and I’m not sure when I will get fresh bread like that again.

I spent some more time down by the river and watched the sunset. I also did some shopping and “hippie-d” myself out with some killer threads. My Impression of Rishikesh is that it is still trapped in the 1970s, and the Beatles never left, and everyone is a hippie. It was a great vibe and I think I totally will be taking a part of it home with me